Is Racism a brain disorder?

Originally posted by bluemirage5
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

I'm Caucasian and regard myself as racist; I'm proud of my race, I'm proud of where I come from and I don't particularly like most ethnic groups but I don't hate any particular one as a whole.

edit on 9-8-2011 by bluemirage5 because: (no reason given)

Lol, Aryan much? J/k, but it sure sounds like it. I know who I will stay away from!


Must be cold up in those mountains

reply to post by Zamini


I know exactly where I come from and I don't need to immigrate to a foreign land of a different belief system and racial people to figure it out such as yourself who is uncomfortable with your own kind.

I'm not racist, I hate everyone equally.

Do I believe racism to be a brain disorder? Not really, I do however believe liberalism to be though.

reply to post by dl2one


Living up in these "mountains" means I live longer, a whole lot longer, while I study my subjects below

reply to post by Frontkjemper


You're not my next door neighbour are you? He's from Belgium and the one on the other side is Canadian!

reply to post by SaturnFX

This is a brilliant and provocative question. Nearby where I live, years ago, a man had a serious accident after falling from some ladders and he sustained a permanent brain injury. A certain part of his brain was affected and afterwards he started a life long obsession with Nazi Germany and Hitler..this was such a bizarre incident that he agreed to be studied by a psychiatrist for it to see what, if anything, they could possibly learn from it.

Originally posted by etidorpha
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

This is a brilliant and provocative question. Nearby where I live, years ago, a man had a serious accident after falling from some ladders and he sustained a permanent brain injury. A certain part of his brain was affected and afterwards he started a life long obsession with Nazi Germany and Hitler..this was such a bizarre incident that he agreed to be studied by a psychiatrist for it to see what, if anything, they could possibly learn from it.

Sounds to me, the accident brought about some recall of his past life.
When I was a small kid, I had a sorta similar fascination. I think a lot of it is past life recall, not fully, but parts.

I don't think so. but having a desire to loot and burn up your own community is.

Many of the "different race stats" like poverty, civility and anarchy can be produced from past and present cultural conditions. Some think slavery stunted African Americans' earning power. Wealth of parents is an indicator to what their offspring's earning power will be (as well as intelligence) and both those findings extend to all races. Financial stresses can contributed to divorce and Blacks growing up without fathers. Blacks without a father figure have a significantly increased chance to commit crimes, and on it goes. It's not an exact "path" obviously but it gives an idea of how things can be shaped, much of it supported by studies.

If each individual is considered and make up what people call a "race", what about those conditions that are beyond an individual's control that help promote deviance and subsequent racism towards that race?

There MAY be accounts of racism being from defective workings in the mind(sociopaths, psychopaths) but by and large racism is a learned behavior. Either from parents, teachers, associates, etc. Watch American History X. Very disturbing but also enlightening.

On a similar note, what about liking someone because of their race? Generally an accepted practice.

...how many generations does it take before a well-established learned behavior becomes a genetic predisposition?... some people say thats impossible but is it really?...

Originally posted by Zamini
reply to post by Fitch303

 

You have ignorant hicks who hate people simply due to them being "black" and then you have racists who notice certain patterns through everyday interaction decide that a certain group may have lower status in a society.

Really? You see these patterns? And that gives you an "excuse-letter" for being a racist? It doesn't.

And to the OP;

It is a mental disorder; just wait and see. Of course, reports on real mental disorders can't be published...the crazy people and hardcore coke sniffers are running things after all.

Nice halfass'd retort. Care to put any thought into your replies? I think you're in complete denial of the facts........

Imagine for a moment that as you go through life, you observe that people that wear orange shirts seem to under perform in school. Not everyone who wears an orange shirt under performs, but most do. As you age, you notice that many people who wear orange shirts seem poor, once again not all but most.

You get into the real world and get a job and once again, you observe that those who wear orange shirts don't seem to do their best at work, don't seem to advance through the ranks, in general they are once again under performing.

You get the point in life where you are a manager and have to hire a bunch of new people for your company.

Would you hire those wearing orange shirts or would you have reservations about hiring those from the orange shirt group?


BTW I have a number of orange shirts.

reply to post by Turq1


I would also like to know that. According to some acquaintances of mine, It's apparently racist of me that I wouldn't date or be in a serious relationship with a non-European woman. However, when I asked them about white women who only want to date black men, it wasn't considered racist.

So, is wanting to be with people that come from a similiar culture as you considered racist now?

if its true that we make our own reality then what you see and what you encounter stems from your own creation. if all you see are black people who just cant cut it socially its because thats all you want to see. Perhaps it makes you feel better to believe such things....that we are all inferior. If all you see when you look at a white person is a devil with a human suit on...chances are your perspective stems from your own skewed ideas and outside influences. When you change the way you look at things the things you look at change and if you dont limit yourself with fixed ideas the world might surprise you. I am learning this myself, though it is an ongoing process. Maybe being a racist isnt so much a sickness of the brain as it is a sickness of the spirit. We are only separated by trivial things...at the heart all is ONE..and yet we have convinced ourselves that this is not true. that there really is a difference. We need to move away from this concept of duality...black and white...good and bad...familiar and alien.....and see that all comes from source. Once you understand that you can learn to see life differently and many of the trivial things cease to matter.

reply to post by Turq1


There is absolutely nothing wrong with liking or disliking any group of anything. Your brain groups while forming its belief system. Its not even a matter of opinion - its a fact of life - the human brain groups things. Its much more effective to group while forming beliefs. You don't need to learn each different fire will burn you. Your brain just learns that one fire was hot and now it groups all fires as being hot, creating a prejudice. This type of grouping and prejudice is the same type that governs over racism and any other group prejudice one may have.

Human brain is mostly a very efficient pattern-finding machine. We want to fit everything into categories. This is where the tendency to prejudice and racism stems from. Blacks are violent low-class, asians are good at math, arabs are religious fanatics etc. are all the results of this subconscious pattern-finding machine doing its job, as it has for millenia.

We have to use our rational part of the brain to understand that real world often does not fit into nice little categories and there are lots of exceptions, and that (as far as I know) there is no evidence that genetics play very important role in such psychological and cultural characteristics. But in the end, no, I dont think racism is a brain disorder.

reply to post by glen200376


Absolutely,it all comes down to continuation of the ethnic line,as you say,we are pre programmed to accept others who are similar to us and reject those who do not conform to our own particular ethnicity.

if we had disorders for everything we would all be medicated. But I don't think it is a brain disorder, its in a persons mindset, like look what is happening in England per instance, some people are thinking the looters are minorities, and people watching it on the news in lets say North America I believe are being less tolerant of minorities because of what is going on in the UK.

I would say it is psychological vs a brain disorder